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Including cancer in NHIS will reduce treatment cost –Minister

November 7, 2012 : Bukola Adebayo

former Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu

The Minister of Health, Prof. Chukwu Onyebuchi, and other stakeholders in the country have said that the inclusion of cancer treatment in the National Health Insurance Scheme and provision of free drugs will reduce the cost of treating cancer in the country.

Chukwu, who was represented by the Director of Procurement in the Federal Ministry of Health, Mr. Samson Opaluwah, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 International Cancer Week in Lagos on Thursday, said reducing the financial cost of managing the terminal disease would reduce the number of Nigerians dying of cancer.

He noted that equipping hospitals with radiotherapy machines and trained medical personnel who would effectively manage and treat patients with cancer would reduce the financial burden of having to travel to far places to get treatment.

To address acute shortage of morphine, a crucial drug in managing the pain of cancer patients, the minister said the ministry had increased importation of morphine for the local production of liquid morphine to increase access to pain control drugs at an affordable cost.

Chukwu said, “Based on the data that we collected from 11 hospitals, 7,000 new cases were documented. This corresponds with the average estimate of 100,000 new cases of cancer reported in Nigeria.

“So, more people now go to hospitals at the slightest suspicion of lumps in their body and we must be able to provide adequate care as more Nigerians are being diagnosed to help their treatment.

“We are presently dialoguing with cancer drug manufacturers to develop strategies to bring down the cost of this important part of cancer treatment. The key to cancer treatment is pain control and we must do all to minimise pain.”

The NHIS should not be allowed to cherry pick which illness to cover otherwise it defeats the objective of getting a health insurance in the first place.
It should also cover pre-existing medical conditions if they have done their arithmetic correctly. We are after all under doctored and in very poor health.

Spokesperson for the Senate Unity Forum, Senator Kabir Marafa, saying his colleagues passed a vote of confidence in Dr. Bukola Saraki’s senate leadership in order to spite President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress leadership.